Chicken Soup & Homicide (3 page)

"Unfortunately, this is classic behavior for Chet." Jake swiped a white kitchen towel over his forehead. "I don't know where Holly went, but we're all done prepping. What can I do to help?"

"Nothing. I'm so mad right now I have the energy of three people." Trisha turned on her faucet and ran her hands under the stream of water. She slicked the wayward curls back with her wet fingers. "I'm pretty much done. Now to just wait for Chet to grace us with his presence."

So Amy and Sophie weren't the only ones having a rough evening. That didn't make Amy feel any better though. This was the very first showdown. It was a great opportunity to raise money for some very deserving charities. If the event went into self-destruct mode, would it continue next year? She knocked on the metal prep table next to Trisha. "We're all set too, so if you do find something that needs to be done, I can help."

"Thank you."

Trisha wiped her hands on her blue-jean apron as she disappeared into the darkness of the backstage area. A crowd was clearly gathering on the other side of the curtain that shielded the competitors from the audience. Multiple conversations blended together in a lively chorus of voices. Amy's former coworkers from Elegance Salon would be out there somewhere in the stadium-style theater seats. Her husband, Alex, wasn't. He was driving home from a business trip in Traverse City.

The scent of rotten eggs drifted past Amy as the curtains waved slightly from a breeze. She looked at Sophie. "Do you smell that? Is somebody using hard-boiled eggs?"

"I haven't seen any eggs." Sophie sniffed, then bent toward the burners in their kitchen. "That smells like propane to me. And it's coming from our hot plate."

She twisted the valve on the small propane tank sitting under the cook top. "That should stop it, but there must be a leak in one of the lines. We need to find someone to fix this fast or the showdown will start with a literal bang."

Trisha reappeared with the showdown's director at her side. Bridget Mahoney was the grande dame of Kellerton. Her family owned half of the town, including the civic arena where the competition was being held. Rumor had it that she was a shrewd landlord, but Amy knew that she was also a philanthropist. She was generous in sharing her money with charities, and never shied away from organizing huge fundraisers that would make mere mortals, or even seasoned PTA presidents, run away screaming for help.

"Your attention, please." Bridget waved her clipboard to silence the chatter of everybody onstage. "I realize we are missing a competitor, but I really can't delay the showdown. It's the end of the expo, and there is just enough time for you all to cook your meals and for the judges to decide on a winner."

Amy raised her hand. "Excuse me, but we have an even bigger problem. There's a propane leak in our kitchen."

That glitch brought a flurry of activity. Stagehands, all sporting fully stocked tool belts, clanked around replacing the leaky propane hose and setting up a high-powered fan to blow away the stinky fumes. An announcement was made to the restless-sounding crowd that the start of the showdown would be delayed for fifteen minutes because of an unforeseen problem.

Mrs. Mahoney's blue sequin-covered sweater twinkled in the harsh spotlights as she paced back and forth along the back of the stage while waiting for the explosive fumes to disperse. The burst of exercise under the hot lights would wilt most people, but her expertly applied makeup was still impeccable. Her silver hair dutifully stayed smoothed back in the simple yet elegant French twist. One of the stagehands flagged her down. She nodded as she listened to him. He disappeared backstage, and Mrs. Mahoney's face deflated into a furrowed grimace when she approached Trisha. "I am so sorry, Miss Dunbar. We need to begin the showdown in a few minutes. Do you want to forfeit or go it alone?"

Trisha plucked a pair of latex gloves out of the supply box sitting at her kitchen station. "I'm pissed off and pumped up. I'll cook everything myself."

All of the competitors clapped. A pair of stagehands quickly dismantled the fan that had been tasked with blowing away the propane fumes. Sophie bumped shoulders with Amy and whispered, "Her meal will probably taste better now, without Chet messing with everything, adding his
gourmet
flourishes."

"True. Sometimes simpler is better, and I think Trisha probably doesn't fuss about things much."

"Okay, ladies and gentleman." The sparkle-rific director said. "I have word that the propane leak is fixed and the fumes have dispersed. Let's get the showdown started. Have fun and good luck!"

The announcer's deep voice, amplified by a constellation of speakers mounted in the theater space, made the floor vibrate under Amy's feet. There was a blizzard of activity onstage as people ripped plastic wrap off bowls of vegetables and double-checked recipes. She wished Carla could've stayed, but she was home catching a nap before heading into the hospital for the night. It would've been nice to look into the audience and see a familiar face that wasn't drooling while trying to catch a glimpse of the star of the competition. Chef Britton was short, but he had swagger. His square jaw and watery blue eyes added to the package that attracted pretty women like peanuts attracted squirrels.

The spotlights brightened, and the curtain slowly began to rise. Amy bumped knuckles with Sophie as the electronic bell signaled the start of the Chicken Soup Showdown. The audience cheered as soup pots clanged onto the hot plates.

There was a
pop
broadcast over the sound system. Someone had turned on a microphone. The competitors were all fitted with battery packs and tiny microphone headsets. They were supposed to talk to the crowd to drum up support for their meals. Trisha announced, "I'm sorry. Chef Britton had an emergency and isn't here at the moment. I'm his cooking partner, Trisha, from Dunbar Farms."

There were a few boos, and the crowd noise ratcheted up a couple notches. "Come on, folks," Chef Jake said to the unhappy audience. "How about cheering on the underdog? Give Trisha a hand for being brave enough to do this by herself."

Applause and cheers replaced the disappointed murmurs. There was a hiss as Sophie dropped a stick of butter into the hot pot. Amy concentrated on dicing another stick of butter into the half-inch cubes Sophie had requested. She scattered the chunks across a plate. Then she slid plastic wrap over the dish and said, "I'm going to run this back to the freezer."

Another microphone popped on. Sophie's voice boomed through the theater. "Hello, everybody. I'm Sophie from Riverbend Coffee." She waved her hand while stirring the vegetables in the pot with a wooden spoon in the other hand. "My partner, Amy, who is famous for winning many culinary competitions, including the Kellerton Summer Festival baking contests, is running some butter to the freezer backstage. I'll be making cornmeal biscuits in a bit and need the fat in the dough to be as cold as possible. Cold butter makes the biscuits light and flaky."

Amy snatched up the plate and scooted through the opening in the backdrop curtain. She stopped for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. The path she had cleared through the clutter was still open and cleared of drunks, courtesy of Holly's tough-mama smackdown. Halfway to the huge freezer Amy kicked an empty pop can. It rattled across the wooden floor, then ricocheted between the legs of a wooden chair. The unexpected speed bump distracted her, and the plate tilted dangerously to the left. Luckily, the butter was a bit sticky from being under the stage lights, and the cubes had suction cupped themselves to the china's smooth surface.

She sprinted the last few feet to the freezer and yanked open the heavy door. The plate flipped into the air as Chef Britton's arm slapped it out of her hand. Centrifugal force peeled back the plastic wrap as the heavy ceramic dish spun like a flipped coin. The waxy butter cubes detached and briefly took flight before raining dairy confetti onto the chef. His body was sprawled on the floor at Amy's feet, with one frozen arm reaching toward the ceiling. A knife protruded from his chest. An amoeba-shaped patch of blood stained his white chef jacket around the oddly sparkling knife handle. Amy screamed. The bad afternoon just got worse, multiplied by infinity.

Amy rummaged around in the bottom of her purse, looking for quarters to feed to the beverage vending machine. Concentrating on gathering change was better than thinking about what was happening backstage. She certainly wasn't thrilled over finding another dead body. In August she had discovered Mandy Jo Pierce, the reigning Kellerton Pie Queen, unceremoniously stuffed under a table with a pie smashed on her face. The second time around playing Discover The Dead Person wasn't any easier though. Her stomach was doing cartwheels, and the other women crowded into the small dressing room of the theater looked like they were in the same boat. It could be the harsh fluorescent overhead lights, but skin tones ranged from pasty white to faintly green. A couple bottles of Vernors ginger ale, split between the four of them, might help settle the rampant queasiness that they all seemed to be battling.

Finally she found enough loose change and a ragged dollar bill. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Trisha jump when the first bottle thumped to the bottom of the vending machine. The poor woman. She'd probably had the roughest evening of all of them. First prepping everything for the competition meal by herself and then finding out her partner was a human Popsicle instead of just flaking out and going AWOL. No wonder Trisha was just staring into space. She was probably too physically and mentally exhausted to process the fact that her partner was dead.

Amy shoved another round of quarters into the coin slot of the vending machine. A few minutes later she had divided the fizzy, golden pop among four disposable cups that were sitting next to an empty water pitcher on a table in the corner. The police officers roaming around outside the claustrophobic room, looking for clues, may be good at solving murders, but they sucked at hospitality.

She handed a glass of the spicy, tummy-taming pop to Sophie. "You still don't look like you're feeling well. Why don't you try sipping on this? The ginger should help make your stomach feel better."

Her shell-shocked cooking partner stared at her like she was an alien wearing a hula skirt. Finally Sophie whispered, "Thank you. I can't get the image of Chet's body out of my mind." She stood up and ran to the bathroom for the third time since they had been exiled to the room.

After Amy had screamed from being karate chopped by Britton's frozen body, Sophie was the first person to arrive at her side. The commotion backstage had disrupted the action onstage. Sophie's succession of slasher-movie-style screeches brought the showdown to a complete halt. The raucous audience fell silent as stagehands gathered around the gruesome scene. When Bridget Mahoney pushed her way into the ring of bystanders, her reaction said it all. "Shit. I didn't think this day could possibly get any worse."

Amy set the cup on the coffee table in front of where Sophie was sitting and distributed the rest of the beverages to the other women who had been competing in the Chicken Soup Showdown an hour earlier. Trisha maintained her stare down with the photograph of a waterfall on the wall. She had taken out her braid. The wild, honey-colored curls tumbling down her back shifted slightly as she nodded to acknowledge the glass Amy sat on the table in front of her. Holly reached out for her cup with a shaky hand. Earlier, her drunken son had been stumbling around backstage, feet away from Chet's icy temporary coffin. The poor woman looked like she had aged twenty years in two hours. Strands of silver hair had loosened from her bun and were sticking up at odd angles all over her head. Her usual sunny smile was gone, replaced with a permanent scowl, like she had sucked on a wedge of lemon.

"Miss Ridley?" A uniformed policeman stood in the doorway. "We're ready to speak with you."

Amy followed the officer down the narrow hallway. She had no idea there was a maze of rooms located under the theater's stage. Until now. The civic arena was a massive place. The hockey rink converted into a giant convention floor when the bleachers were rolled back. The theater that often hosted national touring productions of plays was at the end of the massive brick building. Basically, there were a lot of dark corners and empty rooms for a murder to be committed without anyone knowing. The officer opened a door and motioned for her to enter. Inside, Detective Shepler sat at a small conference table. Never in a million years had she expected to be questioned by him, again, about finding a murder victim. Last time it worked out well. The hunky detective and her best friend, Carla, had rekindled a dormant relationship with each other while they all worked to figure out the murderer. This time there would be no personal benefits to being tackled by a dead man.

"Have a seat, Amy." Shepler's green eyes seemed to glow in the fluorescent light flooding the windowless room. She hadn't seen him in about a month. He had let his butterscotch-colored hair grow out some from its former buzz-cut length. Also, he had started using gel to sweep the longer locks to the side. The change softened his drill-sergeant look a bit. The muscles straining against the fabric of his jacket were still impressive and intimidating. He cleared his throat. "I wish we didn't have to go through this process again. I never knew cooking contests were so dangerous."

Yeah. That made two of them. She should start wearing skull-and-crossbones patterned aprons to warn others of the possible dangers of competing with her, even though she certainly wasn't the one committing the murders. The detective should once again be able to cross her off the suspect list pretty quickly. She had been surrounded by people the entire time between seeing Chef Britton at his booth and finding his body.

So she had a solid alibi, but Shepler wasn't going to be happy to find out about another person who would likely be high on the suspect list. Having a verbal sparring match with someone hours before he turned up dead wasn't a good thing in any book. Amy slumped in the molded plastic chair. She looked behind her to make sure the other officer had left the room. They weren't in a police station, so nobody else should be listening in on the conversation, hidden behind a two-way mirror. "Believe me, I am not enjoying this either. Unfortunately, you're going to like it even less. Chef Britton was trying to intimidate me earlier, and Carla came to my aide. She got in an argument with him. Well, maybe not really an argument…it was more like they swapped a few insults. There were a lot of witnesses around, so I'm sure you'll hear about it eventually."